They passed by selling booths where chickens and geese flapped squawking in wicker cages stacked against the walls while frantic vendors shouted out their prices. Small yards housed pens of rabbits and other small animals offered to the wives and servants on their own quests to bring back dinner for their households. Voices ebbed and flowed with the bargaining; hands flashed with the exchange of coin.
“What will you take for the monkey,” a woman dressed in bits of finery from all the peoples who traded here shouted out as they passed.
“Not for sale,” Kaydu let her know.
“This is Edris market,” the vendor insisted. “Everything is for sale.” Her hand reached for Little Brother, who peeked solemnly back at her from his pack.
“I said ‘no.’ ” Kaydu emphasized her reply with the point of her sword. “Not even in Edris market.”
“No harm meant.” The vendor tucked her hands into her front pocket to show she meant no harm but gave their party a measuring look. As they walked away, Llesho heard a curse at his back. “Everything’s for sale at Edris market,” the woman muttered when he turned around.
“Not today.” As she led them away from the greedy vendor, Kaydu nudged a warning at the monkey. Veteran of many battles and no few spy missions of his own, Little Brother quickly ducked out of sight, sacrificing his curiosity for safety.
They went on in silence for a while, each occupied with his or her own thoughts. As they passed deeper into the market, however, Llesho noticed many empty stalls. The lingering odors of horse sweat or cow dung attested to the presence of the larger animals somewhere in the building.
“The auction block is down here, at the center of this market,” Kaydu led them forward until they could follow the sounds of the caller for themselves.
The missing cattle were being paraded around a sawdust-covered corral with bids following them through their paces. A tall man made even taller by his high turban was keeping a reckoning by turning down the brightly colored bits of paper that he had slipped between his fingers. A sign posted on a nearby column had a painted word on it in a script Llesho didn’t recognize. The roughly drawn outline of a horse beside the word made clear to outlanders what came next. In the distance, he heard the heartbroken wail of a child and knew with a chill in his heart that the slave auction would follow soon after.
Kaydu flinched at the sound, but she didn’t let any of her distaste show in her voice. “We can sell the horses here,” she said, “and probably our saddles and tack as well.”
Without horses, they had to lighten their load to what they could carry on their own backs. Like the others, Llesho went through his pack, gathering the basics of survival from his gear. Unlike them, he also drew out the strange gifts that he had brought with him through his travels.
If all went well they’d have money for passage by boat soon enough and be on their way. By putting their horses up for auction, however, they exposed themselves to more public attention than he would have liked. Master Markko’s spies or any of their enemies might recognize them. They could find themselves fighting a pitched battle in the marketplace. Or they might be followed and set upon in some rat-infested alley on the way to the docks. He trusted his cadre to win such a contest, but would rather not put it to the test.
And they still hadn’t found Tayy. “I don’t trust this place,” he said.
Hmishi darted quick glances around them as he emptied his own pack. “Neither do I.”
“We’re bound to call attention to ourselves if we stay together.” They still wore the uniforms of young cadets out to see the world that they had chosen as their disguise, which worked well enough on the road. Their presence in the market would seem a greater curiosity and gossip had a way of traveling faster than a dream-walk. Llesho cast a nervous look at the buyers and sellers gathered around the corral. Any one of them might be a spy.
“It’s time we split up and took the measure of this place,” Kaydu agreed. “I’ll need someone to help me with the horses and the tack.” She singled out Bixei for the task. “The rest of you, pair up and scout out the exits. Note where the aisles are blocked and where we’ll find good cover if we need it.”
“We aren’t likely to find the Harnish prince here, since the pirates don’t sell anyone they can put to the oar.” Bixei had started to gather the abandoned gear together. He dropped a saddle on the heap as if to emphasize his words.
“But they’ll know in the stalls if the red trousers have been buying or selling in Edris.” Kaydu must mean pirates by that, Llesho figured, though he hadn’t heard the term before. She went on with her instructions, “Ask for news of work for a young soldier. Say you’ll work for passage to Pontus—that should draw out any news of pirates.
Lling and Hmishi worked best together as a pair, so Llesho chose Stipes to accompany him. Bixei puffed up his chest with pride for his partner.
Stipes himself seemed less than gratified with the honor. “You might trust one of the others more to watch your back, two eyes being better than one.” As a reminder, he touched a hesitant finger to the eye patch over the empty socket.
Stipes had lost an eye in battle, but he saw as much with the one remaining to him as most men did with two. In spite of his injury, he remained an able soldier and Llesho refused his offer to stand down with a firm shake of his head.
“We have all survived the same number of battles, and each with our own injuries. I’ll trust to your instincts—and to your one eye for danger—as quickly as to anyone’s.”
“If you see trouble, don’t take it on by yourself,” Kaydu insisted, including them all in her glance. “Find us, and we’ll handle it together.”
The reminder that he didn’t guard the husband of the Great Goddess alone seemed to reassure Stipes, who straighted his shoulders to a military correctness. “Best get on with it, then,” he accepted the task, and with that they broke up, each to his or her own assignment.
Chapter Twelve
THE SOUTH Market traded only in livestock, but that they had in plenty and with a variety of sizes and shapes that Llesho had never seen collected in one place before. Horses and cattle had gathered at the auction block, but camels, with one hump or two, restively pulling against their tethers still spat disgusting gobs as they passed. There were cages with chickens for roasting and roosters for fighting, each in a rainbow of colors. Dogs and sheep and strange small lizards sold alongside hummingbird tongues and monkeys considered a delicacy for the sweetness of their brains. Llesho shivered, thinking of Little Brother.
Here and there they paused to ask about work, but each time they met with a shake of the head and another rant about the hardness of the times. Then, in a stall filled with baskets of rabbits, a woman answered their questions with a buyer’s eye. “No work,” she said, “at least not the paying kind.” She dismissed Stipes with scarcely a glance, but examined Llesho with more interest. “I know as some might be looking for a strong back, if a coin or two would see a bed under you at nightfall.”
He’d seen that look in the slave markets and it made his skin crawl. It was the first hint of pirates, however.
“I think I’ll keep my eye open for more honest coin,” he answered with a sneer appropriate to the suggestion. It would look far too suspicious if he asked for information himself, but Stipes could do it. He dropped back a pace so that Stipes blocked her view and pinched him hard on the arm.
The guardsman twitched, but his training kept him from reacting more obviously. “Where would a man look if he wanted to do a little buying or selling in that market?” He didn’t sound enthused about the prospect, but Llesho did a fair job of acting out his outrage at the suggestion.
“And who did you plan to offer in exchange for a plate of meat?”
“I meant nothing by it,” Stipes assured him, almost as good at the part as Llesho.
The vendor cackled and pointed a thumb toward the corner most deeply hidden in shadows. “Ask the doorman at the Gate of Despair.” Another joke, o
r perhaps no joke at all, which she found more humorous than otherwise.
She’d given him an idea, though. As soon as they were out of sight of her little shop, he pulled Stipes into an empty stall smelling of large animals. The sides were high and made of wide planks with only the narrowest of chinks between them. With Stipes blocking the front, no one could see him and he quickly stripped off his military coat and trousers.
“What are you doing?”
“Sell these for me,” he answered, holding out his uniform and his pack, all except for the Goddess’ pearls, and the gifts he had carried since Farshore Province. “Or trade them for a pair of farmer’s drawers, since we are in the wrong market for even road-worn finery.”
“You’re not making plans behind Captain Kaydu’s back, are you, Holy Excellence?” Stipes whispered with a pointed stress on his title; kings were supposed to weigh their actions.
“No one else has any plan at all for getting Prince Tayy back!” Llesho knew he had to be careful. Lord Yueh had taken Stipes when the rest of them had gone to Farshore. He’d come to be a part of the cadre later, as Bixei’s companion, and had always doubted his position among them. The Lady SienMa hadn’t chosen him for the task, after all. The trick would be to win his cooperation without bruising his soul, but they didn’t have time for discussion and debate. Even now, the pirates might escape them.
“It’s my fault this happened.” And it felt like ice in his belly when he thought about what he’d said that drove Tayy into such danger. “I have to fix it, but I need your help to do it. I’m not asking you to keep a secret from Bixei or the others. In fact, I’m going to need you to tell them. But right now we need to hurry.”
Stipes looked at him with pleading in his one remaining eye, as if that alone might soften Llesho’s resolve. Finally, with a defeated sigh, he gave in. “What do you want me to do?”
“I need a better disguise. I’ll explain when you get back.”
Shaking his head, Stipes made his way back out into the market while Llesho hid himself in the straw. He had only a few moments to wait, however. Stipes was back almost before he settled himself.
“They thought I was a black crow who had stripped the uniforms off the dead on some battlefield,” he grumbled, dropping into his purse the few small coins he had made on the deal. “I could have traded all our uniforms and made a list for next time!”
Llesho took the farmer’s pants. They fit as well as such things ever do, which he realized wasn’t very well at all. At least Stipes’ garb could pass for that of a retired fighter turned farmer. “I suppose it’s the eye patch. Most fighters who have lost an eye are happy to retire to their rocking chairs, trading stories instead of blows.”
“More sense they,” Stipes muttered as he handed over the shirt. “Now, however, you said you would tell me the plan.”
“Thank you.” Llesho’s head popped through the neck of his secondhand farmer’s shirt. “And, yes, I will.
“The rabbit-vendor gave me the idea, actually,” he explained as he worked his arms through the sleeves. “The ‘Gate of Despair’ she mentioned must mark the slave market. She thought that you might sell me there for the price of a night’s sleep.”
“I won’t,” Stipes cut off that direction with a sharp slicing motion of his hand. “I know you are smarter than I am, and higher above me than the sky above the sea. How can one as low as me pretend to sell you in the marketplace!”
“Not pretend, Stipes. It won’t work unless it’s true. You will sell me to the pirates who will in turn take me to their ship. When they move, follow them until you find out what ship we move out on and where they are going. Then you go back and tell Kaydu, who will lead the charge to rescue us. Simple.”
“Begging your pardon, Holy Excellence, but that’s the stupidest idea I ever heard!” Stipes managed to sound like he was shouting even though he kept his voice below a whisper. It cost him, though, as the vein pulsing at his forehead attested. “It’s bad enough we’ve lost one prince. How will I explain to Bixei and Kaydu, let alone Hmishi and Lling, that I’ve lost the other one to the same damned pirates!”
“Does anybody else have a better plan?”
“Yes! You can sell me instead. The cadre can rescue me more easily than you, since I don’t have a magician trying to make me his prisoner at every turn, and you will stay safe among your guardsmen. You’re the one who knows the plan anyway—they’ll need you to lead the rescue.”
“It won’t work.” Llesho shook his head, determined. “How long can you hold your breath underwater?” Stipes shrugged a shoulder. It wasn’t something a gladiator or a soldier was often called on to do. But he’d trained on Pearl Island and knew about the pearl divers well enough that Llesho’s next words came as no surprise: “It has to be a Thebin.”
“You’re not the only Thebin on this quest, though. Hmishi could do the same, right? Or Lling. Either one is Thebin.”
And expendable like himself. He didn’t say it, but Llesho saw it in the set of his guardsman’s jaw and the spark of hope in his eye. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t work either.
“It has to be me. Tayy won’t take orders from anybody else.”
“I have a feeling I don’t want to know this,” Stipes said, “but what do you want him to do?”
“When the time comes, he’ll have to jump overboard. You’ll be waiting to rescue us in the boat that Kaydu’s supposed to hire.”
“I was right, that’s a horrible plan.”
“I’ve heard better myself on occasion,” Llesho admitted. He didn’t much like it, he just couldn’t think of anything else and, as he pointed out again, “No one else has any plan at all.”
“They died like flies caught in honey when battle took them into the Onga River,” Stipes remembered. “Not a one of them could swim. Do you think Prince Tayyichiut will throw himself into the sea even for you?”
“I’ll find a way to get him in the water.” He’d figure out that part later. First, Llesho had to find him. He headed for the shadows where the Gate of Despair was waiting.
Stipes, however, wasn’t finished. “How are you going to keep the others from noticing their king on the auction block?”
“Not the auction. We’d have no control over who bids or who wins. No, we find the pirate captain and make a private deal.” He could handle a private sale, had played that part before with Emperor Shou. His courage failed him at the thought of the auction block, however. He couldn’t live through that again. This way had to work. “You can say that you don’t like the way your wife looks at me so it’s not enough to get rid of me, you want me far away. Or that I tried to escape and the sea will prove harder to run away from.”
Stipes didn’t like it. Now that he’d he agreed, however, he had suggestions of his own. “If you are seen to follow me through the market untethered I can hardly try to sell you cheap because you tried to run away.” He tugged the leather belt from his waist and tied a loop in it that he slipped over Llesho’s head. “That should convince the customer.” He tugged the knot up snug against Llesho’s throat, then slung his own pack at him. “Until the money changes hands, they’ll expect you to carry the burdens.”
Llesho sucked in a quick breath, fighting panic and the grim foreboding that he wouldn’t escape the noose as easily as his plan dictated. Necessary anyway, he reminded himself. He couldn’t ask the khan for help in the coming battle for Kungol if he lost his nephew to the pirates. That wasn’t his real reason, of course. Even if it gained him nothing but the life of his comrade, he couldn’t leave Tayy to that fate. But it seemed more kinglike to back the plan with a political motive. “Let’s go.”
Stipes gave him a last worried frown. “I have a bad feeling about this,” he said.
“Give me choices,” Llesho countered.
As he knew, there were none. Stipes took up the end of the tether and led him by a roundabout path through the market to the corner where slave merchants had their holding pens.
In the
distance the auctioneer called for the horses in a language very like Thebin. “Get a good price,” he muttered, his mind blessedly on Kaydu and the horses as he followed Stipes through the marketplace. “This plan doesn’t work without a boat.”
Underwater, he could breath into Tayy’s mouth long enough to convince the pirates they had both drowned. But they’d be out of reach of shore. Without a boat to rescue them, he and Tayy both would die at the oar.
It wasn’t as bad as he’d thought it would be, Llesho decided. It was worse. The last time he’d tried this particular ruse, Shou had accompanied him to the market in the guise of a jaded merchant looking to buy slaves rather than sell him. He hadn’t known Shou for the emperor back then, but he’d had the comfort of knowing the man for a general of the Imperial Guard should the situation get out of hand. It had, of course, and he’d nearly died in the battle that followed in the streets of the imperial city. But he hadn’t had to worry about Shou bending to the pressure of a slave trader intent on separating him from the Thebin boy he claimed as his property. This time the plan called for Llesho’s pretended owner not to buy the freedom of his brothers but to sell him into hard labor.
He followed Stipes at the limit of the leather belt tied around his neck as he circled in on the shadowy quarter of the market. There they found a section separated from the rest by a tall privacy shield of woven lathing.
They didn’t dare to exchange even a word of encouragement as they hunted out the gate that would gain them entrance to the slave pens beyond. Stipes tugged on the leather thong and glowered at him with a sharp word of warning to make the masquerade more convincing.
“Hurry up there, before the trading is done. You were quick enough under my wife’s skirts when I was away at market.” He started grumbling low enough that only those nearest them could hear his words. Gradually, he raised his voice as if overcome with anger, until he ended at a near roar, “At the oar or with a stone around your neck, you are for the sea tonight!”
Curt Benjamin - [Seven Brothers 03] - The Gates of Heaven Page 15